What is cocoa butter Cocoa butter is a natural oil, which is present in every cocoa seed, which means that also in every cocoa bean. More about seeds and beans…
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What is a good chocolate Let's start what I mean by quality chocolate. It will probably be one that is made from quality cocoa beans as a primary raw material and…
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The taste of cocoa beans As I mentioned in Chocolate tasting I., we should first know what we are going to look for in chocolate. I write this on several blog…
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Often at farmers market I got asked whether our chocolate was veg or raw. These seem like easy questions, but as always, they are not. Is chocolate vegetarian / vegan?…
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Unboxing The tasting itself will probably be preceded by unpacking the chocolate from paper or other packaging. We can start there, because it's good to find out as much information as…
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In this article, I want to focus on chocolate tasting. This is a broad topic, so we will divide it into several parts. This will be just the introductory. We will describe the…
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Today let's look how to properly prepare cocoa drink. In the article on how cocoa powder is made, I mention that alkali salts are added to Dutch-type cocoa to make it…
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In some countries, like my Czech Republic for example, dark chocolate is officially called 'bitter chocolate'. And even where this is not the case, dark chocolate is really considered bitter in…
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Cocoa beans are the seeds of the Cocoa Tree and are hidden in its fruits, which are large pods growing directly from the trunk and branches of the Cocoa Tree. Let's…
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Cocoa mass is the prevalent ingredient in chocolate and therefore it destines the whole choclate quality and character. In order for cocoa beans to become chocolate, they must first be…